Happy St. George’s Day

Wednesday 23 April 2014

Well that time of year is upon us again and I’m sure anybody reading this who is from the U.K is aware today is St. Georges Day, the day we celebrate the patron saint of England and all the great things about our country! In all honesty, myself and my colleagues in the sales and marketing office at Connexica only realised this week that St Georges day was even coming up which made me question the lack of celebration around our patron saint.

We’re all well aware when St. Patricks day is approaching and even St. David’s day you see people pinning daffodils to their coats but unfortunately St. Georges day gets a little overlooked, although Connexica is a business expanding internationally with partners stretching from the UAE, Europe and the USA, we are first and foremost an English company, which we like to think of as a positive USP for us as the majority of our competitors are based overseas.

Obviously in our opinions one of the best things to come out of our country is Connexica and CXAIR! But this led us to consider what we think are the best businesses and innovations to come out of England?

Some of the businesses that could be described as stalwarts of England are those who have been born and bred here, such as J. Sainsburys who now have over 1000 stores throughout the U.K and revenue of over £23 Billion. The company started as one shop in London in 1869 and have experienced extraordinary growth since, although there have been challenges along the way.

Another one in this category is Cadburys, up until 2012 they were a standalone British business who have been established in Birmingham since 1824 and even developed a whole area of Birmingham known as Bournville so their workers could live in better conditions. In 2011 (before they were bought out by Kraft) Cadburys revenue was over £11 Billion and as a major chocoholic I would definitely argue that Cadbury chocolate is one of the greatest products to be produced in England.

Here at Connexica we are all about innovation so it’s only fair to list what we believe to be some of the best English innovations. One that sprung to mind quickly was the famous Dyson vacuum cleaner, designed in the late 1970’s and originally sold in Japan the Dyson is now a permanent fixture in many households throughout England and the U.K, inventor and designer James Dyson who was born in Norfolk is now worth an estimated £3 billion.

A second innovator we can’t fail to mention is Sir Richard Branson who was born in London and is the founder of the Virgin group. The company’s portfolio includes the creation of the world’s first Mobile Virtual Network Operator in 1999; the company now has approximately 50,000 employees and revenue of over £15 billion with a huge variety of different industries and products under their belt.

Of course there are many other great things to come out of England including more great businesses and innovations, so here is an opportunity to say England, we admire you, as we probably don’t say it enough.